


Perspective Dispersion

by Tassos



Series: Lycanthropic Optics: Werewolf!Sheriff AU [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conversations, Derek needs a mentor, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Lunch, Werewolf Sheriff Stilinski, Wolf!Sheriff, canon divergent after season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10984842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: John Stilinski has his hands full with a bloody robbery gone wrong, being short-staffed, and trying to straighten out what happened the night he was turned into a werewolf. Featuring lunch with Derek and pulling information out of Stiles. Somehow, he's going to make this dysfunctional pack functional again.





	Perspective Dispersion

**Author's Note:**

> So... three years later and the next installment is finally here. I can't promise prompt updates, but I do have an idea of where this whole thing is going, so subscribe to the series for updates. This one is weak on action, but so it goes. 
> 
> Also please forgive any internal inconsistencies. It's been a while since I've written in this universe.

By 2 a.m. John doesn't know how long he's been awake. He stands under the harsh fluorescents of the hospital hallway listening to the doctor detail the damage. John scribbles notes on his pad about broken bones and a ruptured spleen, and he has to consciously work not to snap his pen in half. It's hard, and all he can think as he tries to pay attention to the doctor is that it shouldn't be this hard.

"Will he make it?" he finally asks when Dr. Soroyo stops short of summing up the damage.

"If we got all the bleeders, then he's got a 70 percent chance," she says. "His age is against him, and he'll probably need a cane to walk."

John flips his notebook closed and takes a breath, letting the scents of anti-septic and bleach overwhelm the smell of blood that hasn't left him since the crime scene. He takes another breath and thinks of Stiles, asleep at home, to push back the urge to chase the rusty taste in the back of his throat.

"Thanks, doctor. You'll let me know when he wakes up and can take visitors?"

Dr. Soroyo's face is grave. "It might not be for a few days."

"I'll see if we can track down next of kin before then," John says.

"Thank you, Sheriff." Dr. Soroyo moves on down the hall, and John catches a last glimpse through the door of Mr. Hampton, dealer of Beacon Hills Antiquities. Even with the blood cleaned from his face, he appears dead, and John shudders and has to look away.

When he'd arrived on the scene at quarter past ten, he'd been certain he had a murder on his hands. And every fiber in his being had jumped alive.

He's been awake for almost twenty hours and he should be feeling sandpaper eyes and creaky knees. All John feels is keyed up and ready to slip his skin and run in pursuit of whomever did this.

* * *

"What?" John says irritably at the knock on his office door.

"Dad?" Stiles leans in, both hands on the door frame. The headache behind John's eyes eases as soon as his presence registers, and John musters up a smile.

"You shouldn't be here, Stiles," John says, making a half-hearted effort to cover up the crime scene photos laid out across his desk. They've already captured Stiles's attention, however, and -- John inhales -- the smell of pancakes, strawberries, and _sausage_ emanating from the bag in Stiles's hand has him reaching for that instead. 

"You didn't commit any crimes last night, did you?" John asks, only half-joking as he unpacks the styrofoam box. Faster healing or not, Stiles hasn't relaxed his health nut diet restrictions, so the sausage is a surprise.

"You didn't come home last night," says Stiles, leaning over to get a better look at the photos of the smashed in store front. He doesn't seem very surprised by what he's looking at.

John narrows his eyes. "I thought I confiscated your police scanner."

"You did!" Stiles glances up way too innocently.

"Uh huh." He'll have to do a sweep of Stiles's room before he has a chance to hide it again, though John doesn't hold out much hope of finding it. Stiles is sneaky.

He did bring him pancakes and sausage though, so John's maybe willing to let it slide.

"What happened here?" Stiles is about as subtle as an anvil in changing the subject, and John resigns himself to the questions as he eats. It's a gross violation of protocol, but John has been staring at the crime scene photos all night without anyone to talk them over with. He's still hideously short staffed and all his deputies are out on patrol to makes sure who ever did this isn't going to strike again.

"Robbery gone wrong. The owner is in the hospital and until we can get an inventory list to see what's been stolen, we're left with a hell of a mess." John has a request in to the county crime lab, but their people won't be able to get here for another -- he glances at the clock -- hour or so. John's been too keyed up to go home until they arrive.

"Anything weird about it?" Stiles asks.

"You mean werewolf weird?" John says, and gets a sharp look, like Stiles wasn't expecting him to say it out loud. "It looks like a smash and grab," says John, shrugging. "There was glass everywhere and from a first look, nothing seems out of the ordinary." 

He frowns and considers for a moment if he should add how he wanted to go hunt down whoever did this and rip them limb from limb, but Stiles doesn't need to worry about him too. John's werewolf senses are still settling in, and it's a feeling he's going to have to get used to, this rising urge to chase.

"Dad?"

John takes a long slow breath and shoves the feeling as far down as he can. It's not as far as he'd like, but breathing in Stiles's scent helps. "We'll have to see what we find when we go back," he says.

"You'll let me know if it's anything."

"I'll let Derek know," John says because he knows it will get a rise, which it does when Stiles immediately splutters and goes on about how Derek couldn't deduce himself out of an unlocked house before he sees John's smile.

Stiles's eyes narrow at him. "You are not funny."

"And I'll tell you, too," John promises, because for all that he wants to shield Stiles from _everything_ , Stiles will probably find out anyway and then go get himself in trouble with it, and John would much rather have the chance to head anything off that he can. The remains of the smile fall off John's face as the thought hits him again -- Stiles has been neck deep in the supernatural for more than a year and John didn't even know.

Now, Stiles regards him with grown up eyes, and John feels the weight of his soul being measured. It's moments like these when John sees the man Stiles is becoming and is both awed and terrifyingly proud. He doesn't look away, feeling the primal urge he's been wrestling with all day and night bristle, but he shoves that away too until Stiles smiles and nods.

"Do you need me to bring you anything else?"

"No. Thank you for breakfast," John says. Then he raises his eyebrows and nods toward the clock. "And go to school."

Stiles rolls his eyes, seventeen again, and grabs his bag, the spell broken. With a last look at the photos on John's desk, he hustles out. John sits back in his chair and sighs. It's going to be a long week.

* * *

The day is a blur of activity. The guys from county show up to process the antique store, Mr. Hampton wakes up briefly in the hospital, and John gets to tell his sister and niece from Sacramento what happened. When he gets back from the hospital, a pack of reporters is waiting for a statement, and then the mayor waltzes in wanting an update.

For the millionth time since the attack on the station, John curses his lack of staff to deal with everything. Wanda is filtering out the concerned citizens who are calling in every brown-skinned person who looks at them funny. John has one deputy in the office logging evidence collected that morning, but there's no one besides himself available to actually start going through it until nine p.m. when Wanda orders them pizza on her way out the door and he and Deputies Mayfield and Parrish start slogging through it.

Under all the blood and glass were a lot of smashed pieces, and they finally have an inventory to compare what should be there with what was damaged or taken. It's slow going. Very slow going, and by eleven the whole mess is starting to -- finally -- blur together.

"You sure packed that away, Sheriff," Mayfield says when they take a break to clear out the pizza boxes. She gestures to the one by John that had held a large pepperoni he'd devoured. "Don't worry," she adds. "I won't tell Stiles."

Across the table, Parrish laughs through a yawn. They're all tired, and none of them have relief coming tomorrow. This is it, John thinks, tired and worn out. He and his senior deputies are all he's got right now.

John tells them to go home, get some shut-eye, and even gets home himself for a few hours. The urge to hunt has been crushed by being awake for almost 48 hours. He doesn't sleep well, but he sleeps, and it's worth it to reassure Stiles in the morning.

* * *

"Sheriff, you need to eat something," Mayfield leans in his door Thursday after the mayor leaves his office. His new metabolism has been burning through coffee since six a.m. and even though it's only noon, it has done nothing for his headache or his temper. John tries to protest, but Mayfield raises an arched eyebrow and says, "We got this for an hour. We're getting the surveillance tapes this afternoon. There's not much you can do before then."

John sighs and looks up at the wall where he's pinned the crime scene photos. All that they can tell is that what was taken were jewelry boxes and gemstone necklaces. Nothing particularly valuable; all things the insurance will cover without a fight. His eyes catch on the blood and he has to slow his breathing and force himself to look away before his claws come out. It's not right. Mr. Hampton didn't deserve any of this, and as much as John's head knows shitty things happen to good people for no reason, the new part of him still wants to rip someone apart in lieu of justice.

"Yeah." He lets out a long slow breath and summons a smile for Mayfield, who's expression is sympathetic. "Yeah," he repeats, glancing at the calendar on the wall out of habit, and only then realizing it's _Thursday_.

Derek is sitting on the bench outside of the deli even though John's more than half an hour late. He doesn't have his phone out and instead is watching the people on the street like he's happy to be there all afternoon. Like no one got beat badly enough to need a year of rehab not three blocks away. John's halfway to snapping at him before his brain catches up to the fact that none of this is Derek's fault. Derek's apparently to blame for a lot of things recently -- including John getting turned into a goddamned werewolf -- but this John can't accuse him of.

Derek glances toward him as soon as he steps on the sidewalk and stands when John comes up beside him. They're of a height, and John pushes away the urge to pop the blank expression from Derek's face. 

"Sheriff," Derek greets him, "I wasn't sure you were coming."

"I got kicked out of my own station by my deputy," John replies. "Thanks," he adds when Derek holds the door for him.

"Why?"

"To get lunch." John glances over his should to find Derek frowning at him. "Never mind."

They order and settle at a table in the back corner in an uncomfortable silence. After the week he's had, John doesn't feel much like talking, so he ignores the tiny concerned flicks of Derek's eyebrows his way and just eats his damn sandwich.

Eventually, Derek says, "Stiles says you've been working late on the robbery case."

"Stiles talks too much," John says, but with little real heat. The case has been front page news.

"What happened?"

"I can't talk about an open investigation."

"Oh." Derek seems surprised to be included in that, which only annoys John some more. He finishes his sandwich to keep himself from saying anything he'll regret. Just because he agreed to be in the pack does not mean he's not going to take his responsibilities as sheriff seriously. If there's a supernatural connection, he'll bring it up, but until then it's a normal investigation.

"How's the job hunt going?" John asks to change the subject. Derek had had a couple classified ads circled on the kitchen table on the weekend.

Derek shrugs, eyes dropping to his sandwich. "Nothing yet," he says.

"Have you interviewed anywhere?" John pushes.

"Yes. But no one's hiring." Derek says shortly, a glare accompanying his words, and John bristles at the tone. One of his conditions for joining his pack was Derek getting a job, and it's been two weeks already. Some effort would be appreciated here.

"What did they say?"

"They said they weren't hiring," Derek replies, getting defensive, and before John can reply that that's bullshit -- he's seen the Help Wanted signs around town -- Derek adds, "They're not hiring me."

"What? Why not?" John frowns, and Derek pauses after a bite of his sandwich to lean back and gesture at himself. He looks the part of insouciant, insolent youth with his leather jacket and scruff. "Did you even put on a good shirt?" John asks.

"Like that would help. I have an arrest record. Thanks for that," Derek says, and John doesn't need to be a werewolf to know that his inability to get a job stings more than he's letting on.

John sits back with a sigh. It's a complication he hadn't thought about. Any trouble with the law, especially in a town as small as Beacon Hills was a black mark on any job application, even if it hadn't led to a conviction. 

"Put on a good shirt anyway. And shave. It'll at least look like you're trying," he says. 

"I did shave," Derek says, petulant.

"Well, just give it time," John says. It's really the least of his problems right now. He's tired and hungry and the damn case is maddeningly not turning up any leads. Derek's only been job-hunting for a week.

"How are the kids?"

"Fine." Derek blinks at the subject change, his nostrils flaring. "Better than you. How are you handling…" He waves a hand to encompass everything.

"Fine. I'm fine," John replies. He takes another two bites of his sandwich and sighs again after he swallows. "I'm holding onto my control by a thread. The blood, even the pictures of it."

Derek nods. "The shirts helping?"

John doesn't pluck at his collar where both Stiles's tank and Derek's tee are layered underneath his uniform. "They help enough," he says. "It's more the case. Which we are not talking about."

"If it's anything supernatural -" Derek starts.

"I already promised Stiles I'd let him and you know if anything turns up. But right now, it's a normal violent crime, which means it's none of your business. I don't need more complications right now."

Derek's annoyed, but he doesn't comment further, which is a fresh change from Stiles's usual relentlessness. They eat in silence for a minute, and slowly, John relaxes. In the frenetic pace of the last few days, he's forgotten how much Derek's presence helps with the whole werewolf thing.

"There was something else I wanted to ask you," John says once both sandwiches are gone and they're finishing their chips.

Derek's scent changes slightly when he looks up, but John doesn't know what it means.

"It's about the alpha that attacked me," he says, and Derek definitely tenses up.

"What about him?"

"I want to know why. What happened?"

Derek's eyes narrow. "What did Scott and Stiles tell you?"

"Enough to know I need your side of the story," John replies, unsurprised Derek knows why he's asking.

Derek's stare doesn't let up, but John waits him out, calmly eating his chips and letting the silence do his work for him. Derek is pretty good with silence, John will give him that, but after a minute or so he folds like a bad hand of cards.

"The alpha, Gavin, wanted to move in on our territory. I asked them to leave. They didn't want to. Gavin ended up going after you, trying to get a foothold. You got turned." Derek's crosses his arms over his chest like he's done talking.

"That's it?" John arches an eyebrow.

"Pretty much."

John snorts. "I don't need to be a werewolf to know that's not nearly a quarter of it," he says. "Why did they want to move in?"

"They'd been tracked by hunters in Oregon and lost half their pack, they said."

"You didn't believe them?"

Derek shrugs. "Stiles found some news reports that made it seem plausible. But they came all the way to Beacon Hills. If they just wanted help, they could have gotten it from one of the packs closer to Humboldt."

John files away that information away to follow up on later. "So why do you think they came here?"

"We're weak," Derek says. "We're sitting on a site of power and our pack is me and three teenagers plus one who wants to be omega."

"You mean Scott -- wait are you saying Scott is actually part of you pack even though he's told me, quite emphatically in fact, that he's not?"

Shrugging again, Derek says, "He's not really, and he doesn't listen to me, but we cooperate enough that he's functionally with me most of the time. What else would you call it? It's not like I'm going to let him get himself killed."

It's a surprisingly responsible comment, and eve makes sense after a fashion. John is still fuzzy on what exactly being a pack entails other than pizza and hanging out at Derek's house. 

"So other than choice, is there anything else that makes us a pack?"

"You mean anything supernatural? It depends. You could be strong enough to resist your instincts to obey when I use the power of my voice as alpha," Derek says. "For you and Scott it would be easier to resist than for Erica, Isaac, and Boyd since I didn't turn you, though they could resist too if they wanted. It'd be even harder if we were related by blood."

"Like your family."

"Yeah, or ritual blood." Off John's surprise, Derek explains. "Like when an alpha forces one they've turned to kill someone."

"The hiker." John feels the scent memory of blood and swallows hard.

Derek nods. "You would have been bound more tightly to Gavin through the kill. Peter tried to do that with Scott. Gives the alpha more power over their betas. It's how a lot of packs forge those ties outside of family."

"That's." John has to look off to the side, out the window at normal everyday life for a minute. "That's a really shitty way to run things," he finally says.

"Yeah," Derek agrees, poking at the last of his chips.

"So what happened when they came to town? Did they come talk to you?" This time when John asks, Derek doesn't tense up. But he doesn't speak right away either. "Come on, Derek. Level with me here."

After another drawn out pause, Derek relents. "Not at first. I scented their guy they sent to scout ahead, told my three. Erica and Boyd ran into him first. He asked them a bunch of questions, and Erica didn't like him, but nothing happened then. I told Isaac to let Scott know. He found Scott next. Apparently he was better at making friends with him and Allison."

"Not Stiles?" John asks.

"Are you kidding? Stiles doesn't trust anyone outside of his people." Derek gives John a look like he should know that already. And maybe John does. Stiles is an excellent judge of character, always has been. If anything, John is surprised that Derek knows that about his son.

"Stiles was the one who told me they'd run into him," Derek says.

"And what did you tell him?"

"That he was right to worry and they should keep clear."

"This was Schwartz?"

"Yeah. What did Scott say about him?"

"I got the story from Allison, actually," John says. "She said they were trying to find them a place to lay low."

"Lay low. Right. More like take over," Derek says. 

"And how do you know that?" John asks.

"Two werewolf packs don't exist in the same territory. One of them takes it eventually."

"No splitting the city?"

"Hardly. I figured you'd understand best. On tv, cops hate when other cops show up in their towns to solve their problems. It's like that."

"There can be only one, huh?" John says.

"What?"

"Never mind. I forget how young you are sometimes." John shakes his head. He doesn't need severed heads and electrified corpses showing up on top of his current problems anyway. "You mentioned something earlier. About Beacon Hills being a site of power."

"Yeah. I don't know much about it, but it's why my family lived here. The 'beacon' part of Beacon Hills."

"A beacon for what?"

Derek shrugs. "Strange things sometimes happen here. My mom and dad and aunts and uncles used to go take care of things that they said were out of balance. Deaton probably knows more about it."

"Deaton, the vet? That Scott works for?" 

"Yeah."

"Does everyone in this town have a secret identity?" John doesn't know why he's surprised by more people being involved in all this but he is. 

All Derek does is shrug. John gets back on track.

"So you think this other pack came here because it's a site of power. Do I even want to know what they'd want to do with something like that?"

"That and we're relatively weaker than other packs." Derek ignores his question, and since John really doesn't want to know just yet, he lets it go. 

"Not so weak if you kept them out," John points out getting only another shrug from Derek.

"We were lucky."

"Lucky how?"

"When Gavin and Kyle showed up, they weren't exactly being subtle. They harassed Boyd and were assholes to Erica. They weren't as bad to Isaac, but he was hanging out with Scott who they were buttering up. Got him to try and convince me to let them stay. I tried to tell him, but he never listens to me."

John has a sneaking suspicion that Scott's stubbornness wasn't helped by however Derek tried to tell him. Derek isn't exactly the best with confrontation, John is noticing.

"What happened with Boyd and Erica?" he asks.

"Trash talking mostly, I think. Schwartz and Kyle were at the school a lot. They followed Erica home though. Freaked her out the first time. She ended up staying at the house for a couple nights. After she went back, Schwartz ambushed her at school and she had to fight her way out."

John resists the urge to run his hand over his face and focuses on his breathing. It takes more self-control than he cares to admit to not react violently to the image that conjures. That's about five different red flags right there.

"Where was Gavin in all this?"

"Around town looking for a job. Trying to convince me to let them stay. I think he thought I'd be grateful a proper alpha had shown up, because of course Scott told Schwartz and Kyle all about everything that happened last spring and how it was all my fault." The bitterness in Derek's voice is enough to curdle milk.

"What would have happened if you accepted his offer?" John asks. 

"He'd have taken over my pack."

"And you?"

"I'd be his beta. Or actually probably dead since there was no way I was letting him take over without a fight. He was an asshole."

He says it with such equitable calm that John doesn't process the words right away. Derek meets his eyes easily, waiting for him to respond, or maybe challenging him to.

"What about the kids? What would happen to them with you dead?" John asks softly.

At that Derek glances away. "Look, it didn't happen that way. After Schwartz cornered Erica like that, I told Gavin he had twenty-four hours to get his pack and get out. He didn't like it -- we fought. I won, and he agreed to go. Except he didn't go, he went after you."

"Except he didn't come after me, did he?" John says, and when Derek doesn't react he knows he's right. "Where was Stiles in all this?"

"With Scott."

"And?" John presses.

"He's always with Scott," Derek says with more annoyance than John's expecting. He leans forward and brash Derek Hale is actually fidgeting with the potato chip bag on the table.

"Is Stiles your go-between with Scott?" John asks, adding when Derek doesn't answer, "Because for someone who's always with Scott -- and those two have been practically inseparable since they were in diapers -- he's spent an awful lot of time lately defending you."

Derek's hands abruptly stop moving. He lifts his head slowly, and the expression on his face is the most open and surprised John has ever seen there.

"If you're not careful you might end up friends," John says lightly, carefully.

"Stiles wouldn't do that," Derek says.

"Well, he did," John replies. "So was he who Gavin was after? When he showed up at our house and found me instead? Derek, I need to know."

Derek straightens in his seat, his arms crossing, on the defensive again. "Yes."

John closes his eyes and lets the word settle. Knowing and hearing it are two different things. The alternative turn of events spins out in front of him -- Stiles turned, caught up in bloodlust, John and his ignorance of the supernatural leading to Stiles hurting him or worse, John shooting him. In either case, would Stiles have found Derek in time to save him from Gavin and prevent him from killing the hiker? Would Stiles have become a murderer at seventeen? 

"Hey. Hey, Sheriff." Derek's voice cuts through his thoughts, and John realizes he's breathing hard, every scent and sound around them amped up to a hundred. A warm touch brings him back to the here and now. Derek's fingers are on his wrist.

"You okay?" Derek asks.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Gavin's dead so it's not like he could try again. And Stiles asked me not to."

"Stiles asked." Of course he did. Of course he god damned did. John runs his hands over his face and through his hair, trying to contain the fury that sweeps through him. He knows it's half werewolf response, but knowing that doesn't help it go away.

Derek at least has the grace to look sheepish. 

John could throttle his child. "I know you've known my son longer than you've known me, but he is still my son, and I need to know shit like this," he says with exaggerated patience. "Next time you tell me. Is that understood?" 

He only gets a nod in return, and who knows if Derek will actually follow through. John is so angry he's starting to lose it again, but Derek's fingers remain on his wrist. They just sit there for a minute, John breathing, and Derek watching him with an unblinking gaze that should be unsettling but is strangely comforting instead.

When John finally looks at the time, his break is up. "I better get back to work."

He feels marginally less likely to fly off the handle, which he'll take.

"Okay." Derek follows when John clears his trash. In the parking lot, as John's eyes are adjusting to the midday sun, he asks, "Are you coming over this weekend?"

Fumbling for his sunglasses, John shakes his head. "I'm on call this weekend."

"Oh, right. Of course."

John glances at Derek sharply. He sounds . . . disappointed, but his eyes are already hidden behind his own sunglasses and he moves off quickly toward his car. 

"I guess I'll see you next week then."

"Yeah. Bye." John waves. After Derek takes off in his showboat of a car, John takes a moment to just breathe. It all feels like too much, sometimes, but the only thing he can do is just keep moving. He takes another breath and tries to push his worry about Stiles to the back of his mind, before heading back to work.

* * *

In the hour he's been gone, the office has gone to hell. There's three reporters and a councilwoman clogging up the front desk all shouting questions and demands at Wanda who looks as frazzled as she sounds. Mayfield and Parrish are nowhere in sight, which is hardly surprising considering that they don't have enough deputies anymore to have one minding the store all day.

"Sheriff Stilinski!" He's noticed as soon as he steps through the door, and then all the demands are being shouted at him.

"Were you following up leads?" "What's the status of your hunt for the Hampton murderer?" "Why hasn't the family been informed?" are about all he hears before he has to clench his eyes shut to hold off the change. He tucks his nose near his shoulder to catch Stiles and Derek's scents.

"Please, one at a time," he says when he feels the worst of it recede. "I'm sure you all remember the attack last spring that left us understaffed. We are doing all that we can as fast as we can, and the mayor is fully briefed, so please take your questions to his office. Thank you!"

He holds open the door, and the reporters file out with sour looks sent his way. John plasters on a smile for them, and then he's just left with the councilwoman.

"Ms. Kelly, I can answer any of your questions in my office." He gestures for her to follow him behind the counter.

It's an unpleasant hour, but she's not out for his badge by the time she leaves even if she's not happy, so John calls it a win. He turns to Wanda after seeing her out with a sigh.

"How the hell did they all get in here?" He doesn't mean to accuse her of anything, but Wanda bristles anyway.

"I left for five minutes to go to the bathroom, and there they were." Wanda throws up her hands. "We need a damn guard dog, is what we need," she says testily. With John nearly losing it, they nearly had a guard dog and wouldn't that have been a story for the local news.

But maybe that's not a half bad idea.

John watches Wanda move one pile of paper to another stack on her desk. It's a cityscape of forms and reports, with all the notes that still haven't been processed and all her regular work that has piled up in the wake of needing all hands on deck for the Hampton case. If he's honest, her desk has been piled up like that for months, no matter how much extra paper work John or his deputies take on. What they need is more admin help.

John has been prioritizing recruiting deputies, because there's only so many hours in the day, and they're ultimately the greater need. But maybe he's been going about this backwards.

"You have those job applications handy?" he asks Wanda.

She levels a look his way. "You can print one out from the website like everyone else, Sheriff."

The printer, John's pretty sure, doesn't like him, so he mentally puts it on his list for later and heads back into his office to get back to the case file.

* * *

John gets home late for dinner but he does make it home. The Jeep is in the driveway, but the downstairs is quiet when he walks in. Stiles has left him a veggie casserole in the fridge, which hits the spot after his long draining day. John checks his phone impulsively, but there are no new messages. He's got about six hours before he needs to be back in the office.

Times like this, John can appreciate being a werewolf. The bone-deep tired that used to plague him whenever he stayed up past eleven hasn't kicked in yet -- maybe it won't at all. He doesn't feel the need to down a handful of ibuprofen to deal with his knees, and in the morning, he might not be wishing for a few more hours of sleep.

He checks on Stiles after he eats, knocking softly on his bedroom door.

"That you, Dad?" Stiles calls, the door opening as Stiles wheels back in his desk chair. A couple text books are open next to his computer, and he flips a pen between his fingers.

"I was worried you wouldn't make it home again."

"Just enough time to catch some shut-eye and take a shower," John says. "Can I come in?"

"Sure. How's the case?"

"Ongoing." John steps inside and sits on the corner of the bed. "I actually wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm fine." Stiles's has that trying-to-be-still-but-kind-of-twitchy look on his face that means his hackles have gone up. It doesn't take long for his knee starts bouncing. "Why?"

Experimentally, John inhales through his nose, but Stiles's scent is so strong through the room that he can't tell whether the nuances are old or new. Since smell isn't his first language, anyway, John doesn't know if he'd even be able to interpret what he was smelling anyway.

"I talked with Derek today," he says. "He said something about the night I was attacked by that alpha werewolf."

"The night you got turned."

"Yeah, then." The words are still too weird for John to actually say out loud. "When were you going to tell me that you were the target?"

Stiles's knee freezes for a whole second then starts bouncing again, and a moment later he's on his feet. The scent in the room has definitely become sharper as Stiles bounces on his toes. "You'd just gotten turned into a werewolf and were shifting and growling all over the place. I couldn't tell you then!" he says.

"And later?"

"I don't know, I didn't think it mattered at that point."

"Someone tried to attack you, and you thought I wouldn't want to know?"

"Well, I mean, he was dead," Stiles says like that is a completely okay state for someone to be, even a criminal.

"Stiles," John says, trying to keep a hold of his temper. "You promised me. You looked me in the eye on Sunday and said you wouldn't keep things like this from me anymore. This is why you didn't want me talking to Derek, isn't it?"

"I thought you meant more moving forward I would tell you stuff. You never said going backwards." Stiles sits back down into his chair. He can barely keep eye contact, his gaze flickering around the room.

"You know damn well that things like an _alpha werewolf_ coming after you were exactly what I meant." John says, his voice clipping as he tries not to yell. His instincts are a mess right now. The frustration and anger he's used to, but then there's the urge to grab Stiles by the back of the neck and shake him which he's definitely not used to. 

"All right, fine, I'm sorry," Stiles says in a rush. He pushes off the floor and spins in his chair, and the urge to shake him doubles in John's gut. It takes everything he has, including deeply inhaling Stiles's scent, which permeates the room, to keep his temper in check. This is one part of being a werewolf that he distinctly dislikes.

"Stiles," John says after a moment. "I've put seventeen years into making sure you are safe. I know I can't protect you from everything, but until you are eighteen you don't get to deny me the opportunity to try."

"Dad - " Stiles is a mix of guilt and stubborn righteousness.

"Right, I know. It's done. Is there anything else I should know that you've conveniently left out?"

Stiles's eyes narrow. "I feel like this is a trick question."

John smiles a little bit, deliberately letting go of some of the tension between them. "Okay. Here's what I want to know. Why did Gavin target you?"

"Because he was a crazy alpha werewolf that Derek was running out of town?"

"Yeah, but why you? Scott and Allison were trying to help them," John says, and from the way Stiles freezes he knows he's on the right track. "Were you helping them or did you think Derek was right to try to make them leave?"

Stiles rocks in his chair for a moment, like he's trying to figure out what John knows. But then he sighs and slumps back. "I thought it was a bad idea to help them. I never liked Schwartz, and Scott wanted to help them stay because Derek wanted them to leave. Derek's not all bad, you know. He's just, like, criminally bad at communicating." Stiles sounds fond.

"I know," John says.

"I mean, he's totally right that more werewolves in town would be bad, especially another pack. Then we'd have three factions and then the hunters would go nuts and we'd - "

"Wait. There're still hunters in town?" John asks, and a second later he mentally calls himself all sorts of an idiot. "Allison's family."

"Yeah," Stiles confirms, watching him. "Allison's dad is pretty cool though. We kind of have a truce with him."

John takes a breath and tries to order his thoughts. They are getting off track again from his original question. "Let's table the hunters for tomorrow's remedial session," he says. "You were on Derek's side about the other pack."

Stiles nods.

"So Gavin went after you because . . ."

"Derek and I are friends. I mean, Gavin was trying to convince Derek to let them stay again when Erica and I got to the house after the thing with Schwartz."

"After he attacked her," John clarifies, because Derek had glossed over the immediate aftermath.

"Yeah. She was spitting mad but also kind of freaked out, and I think she grabbed me because I was the first one of us that she found once she got away. She asked for a ride to the Hale house, so I gave her one. And man, as soon as we got there, and Derek saw her -- he must have smelled something because Erica didn't even have to say anything, Derek just knew shit had gone down. He flipped out at Gavin and gave him the ultimatum. Gavin shifted and tried to fight him about it, but Derek is scary good at fighting. We thought that was it. I didn't even seen Gavin again till after he had you out in the woods with that hiker, and Derek and I found you, and then, you know, I was kind of freaking out about everything else."

John absorbs that. He looks at his son who meets his eyes now that things are in the open. All this, John being changed, is still not easy for him. "Are you doing okay?" he asks.

"Me? I'm fine." Stiles can be a good liar except when he's not. This is definitely the latter.

"You're fighting with Scott, and I'm a werewolf, which I'm guessing was one of your worst nightmares when all this started."

"I've spent the last eight years trying to keep _you_ safe," Stiles says wryly. John responds with a half smile that hurts on the inside.

"And the problems with Scott?"

Stiles sighs and shrugs. "Things aren't bad," he says. "We just don't always talk a whole lot about some things, like the pack thing with Derek. I don't know. He spends a lot of time with Allison, and now Isaac's hanging out, and he doesn't want to just go do things like we used to."

John can't say he's completely surprised. Stiles is trying not to look hurt by the situation but it's there in the corner of his eyes. 

"Sometimes that happens when girls come into the picture," he offers. "You two have been friends with only each other for so long that it's going to be an adjustment."

"Thanks, Dad. I hadn't realized." The sarcasm drips from Stiles's voice.

John shrugs too. "That's all the wisdom I got," he says. "Are you still holding that torch for Lydia?"

"Dad!"

"What? I seem to recall there being a ten-year plan." John holds his hands open wondering what the big deal is. It hadn't been a big deal the last time he'd asked about her.

"We're just friends now," says Stiles, exasperated now.

"Like actual friends?" John's surprised. "She talks to you?"

"Thanks." Stiles rolls his eyes. "She and Allison are best friends, and before you yell at me for this later, she's been sort of part of all the supernatural stuff, too. Her and Jackson."

John thinks, of course and nearly asks, then remembers the weirdness at the hospital after she'd gone missing for a few days a while back and stops himself. "You can tell me about it tomorrow," he says, standing up. His knees don't even twinge, and the absence still feels weird.

He stops by the door, something Stiles said earlier about being friends with Derek trickling up from the back of his mind and glomming on to Derek implying they weren't. "I'm glad you're friends with Derek," he says. "He could use some."

"Someone has to socialize him since none of his pack are up for the job," says Stiles with a harrumph, spinning back to his computer and his text books.

Hearing it put that way almost makes John laugh because, yeah, that's exactly it. "Night, Stiles," he says.

"Night, Dad."

John closes the door after himself, and heads back downstairs to his office. While he's thinking about it, he gets online and prints out the job application. 

John's pretty sure Derek didn't know what hit him when he met Stiles. He almost feels sorry for him, except John's about to railroad him too. Between the two of them, he hopes he and Stiles can give Derek the grounding he so desperately needs. Otherwise this feud with Scott is never going to end, and if there's one thing John's picked up over the last week, it's that Stiles doesn't want to be caught in the middle of their fight. All three of them deserve better.


End file.
